


recovery is a long road (but there’s no traffic)

by Serie11



Series: these broken pieces (can be made into a new whole) [1]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Family Bonding, Family Feels, Fix-It, Friendship, Gen, Kairi Lives, Keyblades (Kingdom Hearts), M/M, Minor Vanitas/Ventus (Kingdom Hearts), Post-Canon Fix-It, Post-Kingdom Hearts III, Recovery, Sora Lives, Vanitas (Kingdom Hearts) Redemption, Vanitas Lives, can be read as Terra/Aqua, everyones got issues to work though!!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-24
Updated: 2019-02-24
Packaged: 2019-11-04 16:15:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17901404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Serie11/pseuds/Serie11
Summary: Ventus has slept for so long that being awake leaves him exhausted. Aqua can’t remember when she slept last and sometimes she thinks she’s forgotten how to. Terra drifts between waking and dreaming, unsure what is real and what isn’t. Vanitas never had to sleep before, and he struggles with it like he does everything else in this new life.Aqua, Terra, Ven and Vanitas, post KH3





	recovery is a long road (but there’s no traffic)

 

Ventus holds out his hand in that grim graveyard, tells him that he can be more than this, and doesn’t take no for an answer.

Vanitas folds. He’s always followed what other people have told him to do, anyway.

* * *

 

Sora defeats Xehanort and Terra can only stare numbly as the boy he passed over stands victorious. After everything he’s been through, this just seems like another dream. Crueller than the others, too. This one has given him hope. He wants to think that Xehanort is gone. He wants his family back, in a greedy, soul sucking way that drains him from the inside out.

Terra brings Aqua and Ven closer in the grasp of his arms. Even if this is a dream, for now he can bask in the feeling of them close by.

* * *

 

Aqua is the last one left awake in that long first night when everyone comes back to Master Yen Sid’s Tower and half of them collapse where they stand. Lea vanishes to the depths of the tower, Kairi takes her boys and they all disappear in the direction of the showers. Ven cajoles Vanitas into discarding his broken helmet and doesn’t seem too offended when he disappears into a closet, spitting something about needing space. Her star struck boy sleeps so easily, and Terra sits beside him and his eyes close, too.

Aqua is left looking after them all, hands twitching with the need to summon her Keyblade. There was never time to rest in the Realm of Darkness. Always, she was waiting, waiting for the next strike, wherever it may come from.

The silence of the Tower is deafening to her.

* * *

 

Ven wakes slowly. It takes time for him to extract sleep’s restless claws and yawn himself awake. Sora and Kairi are bright and so happy, celebrating their victory. The quieter happiness of Xion and Roxas follow them, complimenting shadows to their intensity. He drowses over his breakfast and tries not to startle too hard when Aqua puts a hand on his shoulder.

He waits, but Vanitas does not join them. Ven can’t bring himself to be surprised. He had suspected something like this would happen, and he’s much too tired to fake it.

* * *

 

Ventus follows him like a shadow. It grates on his senses, and his sense of what _is_ and what _should be_. Ventus is the light. _He_ should be the one chasing after Ventus, like he has for so long. The sun does not follow the night – the night creeps in where the sun does not shine. It rankles. It bites at him, along with his sudden lack of abilities. He can no longer summon the unversed, or his Keyblade. It makes Aqua feel more inclined to let him live rather than kill him, but the helplessness of being in this situation claws at him. Any one of them could kill him, and he could not stop them. The fact that they haven’t is even more galling. He should not exist. He should not be here. They are _indulging_ Ventus by letting him live.

He does not understand why Ventus has not chased him away. He is everything they are already trying to forget. Vanitas crept out of his hiding place when he was sure they were all gone and stalked through this tower, poking his nose in where he could. He heard Sora’s nightmares and Xion and Roxas talking to each other all night instead of sleeping. He heard Lea’s fervent prayer to the stars that he could find his friend. He used all his knowledge to hide in the shadows and watch Aqua as she paced, sleepless, around the tower.

Xehanort may be gone but his shadow lingers. Vantias can only wait for them to realise that he is the part of the shadow they can most easily extinguish.

* * *

 

Aqua does not want to let Lea, Roxas and Xion leave the Tower. Even though she has only known them for a short time, Roxas looks like her Ven, and the thought of him being out of her sight crawls down her spine in the early hours of the morning when she is the only one awake.

But she has no reasons why they cannot leave for Twilight Town, especially when it is apparently peaceful and Xehanort has been defeated. So she bids them farewell along with all the others and clings mutely to her terror and anger. _(How dare they leave her?)_

She keeps Ven in sight, which he begins to chafe at far sooner than she had thought. He is not the boy she remembers, wide eyed and amazed by any small trick of magic she could pull off. He has been tweezed and beaten into a new form like she had worked the metal of their Wayfinders, such a long time ago that she can barely remember it.

She does not recognise his new shape. Only the colours are the same.

* * *

 

Terra drifts along in the current of this new life, uncertain of how to proceed or if he can proceed. Everything still feels so uncertain, so fragile. He can hear sentences and reply to them, but as soon as the conversation is over it fades from his memory like a dream. Aqua has taken to reminding him to eat throughout the day, reminding him to sleep. He tells her to sleep too, and she smiles at him, a tight, false flex of her lips as she promises that she will. He does not know how to tell her he knows that she is lying, and soon enough he forgets about it, until the next evening comes and she repeats the action.

He hates that smile.

* * *

 

Ven feels like whimpering when Sora tells him that he and his friends are going back to their islands. He feels adrift enough without Sora leaving him behind. The certainty that Sora brings will be gone – the link between their hearts has disappeared. The only bonds that remain now are ones of kinship and friendship, forged between them but not unbreakable.

Ven thinks he feels more than that. Sora saved his life. Sora is the first thing he remembers. Sora is warmth and friendship and safety. Sora was the one to defeat Xehanort.

Ven reaches but he still cannot ( _will not_ ) remember anything before the brief flashes of his days training with Xehanort. He must have a past beyond that. He has asked Vanitas, but he claims he does not remember anything either. Neither of them know anything and both of them are grasping for something to hold onto.

He thinks Aqua likes that he does not remember. She does not want him to have a past, or anything that will take her away from him. Ven just aches to know who he was, so he has something to hold against his crumbling conviction of his own self. The only thing that’s the same is Vanitas. The other boy is still his opposite. He is not forgetful like Terra or wrathful like Aqua. Only sarcastic and distant and scared.

Ven thinks he understands that. He’s scared too, of what they are now. Are they still a family? Can they still be a family?

He wants Sora to stay and help him hold everything together, but he thinks that maybe the only way they can get through this is if he leaves. Even if they all fall apart, the pieces they pick up afterwards might be broken, but they will be _theirs._

* * *

 

She paces around the Tower. Only her two boys, Vanitas, and Yen Sid remain. This is familiar territory, but it is not _hers._ She wants to tread on familiar ground where only she has the upper hand.

The next day she tells Yen Sid they will be going home.

The decision comes after another sleepless night.

* * *

 

Vanitas hates the Land of Departure.

It is in ruins. Whatever has happened to it after the last time he had been here was not kind to either the castle or the land around it. Aqua tasks Terra with starting to clear the rubble of the broken parapets, and starts repairing the holes in the ground herself. She does not leave instructions for either himself or Ventus.

Ventus takes that as leave to explore the ruins of the castle. Vanitas trails after him from a distance because he does not know anything else. Ventus investigates the broken walls, the unbroken walls, the main hallway and the small side corridors. Vanitas turns a corner only to find Ventus standing hidden on the other side. He’s wearing a small pout. Vanitas looks away from it.

“You can walk with me, you know.”

“I don’t want to.”

“If you say so.”

Ventus slowly starts to walk away. Vanitas starts to trail him again, but his slow pace is aggravating. Eventually, he catches up to Ventus and walks faster than him. Ventus matches his pace. Vanitas does not have to look at him to know that he’s smiling.

* * *

 

Terra does not know if being in the Land of Departure makes things better or not.

So much is different. Too much is the same. He half expects the Master to be sitting at his normal place at the head of the table, or standing in the main hall in the morning to scold him because he is late to lessons.

He is not there.

It hurts and it hurts and it hurts and Terra avoids the courtyard out the front of the castle. His nightmares follow him through his waking hours and stare him in the face when he looks at places where the Master should be.

No one sits at the head of the table when they eat.

* * *

 

There is a tree on the mountain top that Ven always loved to climb, even when he was disorientated and still healing the first time he was here. When he can, he escapes from the castle and finds his way up the mountain to sit there. Almost, up here he can pretend that nothing is wrong with the castle or the grounds, and that his whole family will be waiting when he goes back for dinner.

As long as he keeps his head tilted up towards the sky so he doesn’t see the broken training devices on the slop, he can pretend.

* * *

 

Vanitas is given his own room. He still doesn’t know why. Terra shows it to him, which means that it must come of the will of the Master of this place. Aqua has no reason to show him any kindness. He does not know why he is still breathing.

The only thing that makes sense is that Aqua locks him in his room in the evening and only lets him out when the sun streams into his window. He understands being a prisoner but this is the strangest prison he has been in. After she lets him out, she turns her back on him and expects him to come down to eat breakfast with everyone. Vanitas does not always follow – he did at first, but now he relishes the freedom of breaking away when he wants to. It means that when he does follow, it is because he _chose_ to. She cannot make him do anything he does not want to.

( _She has not made him do – anything._ )

He does not like eating but apparently it’s another thing this body now demands of him. Just like sleep, though he does not understand that either.

The only thing that makes sense is that Aqua locks him in his room and he must resist the urge to tear at the walls as he paces, paces, uncertain. He knows that sleep is done during this time but he cannot seem to figure out how to. Lying on the bed only makes him more aware than normal of his darkness is crawling under his skin. This must be punishment. He does not know anything else it can be.

* * *

 

Ven slowly comes back to himself. The Land of Departure has always been a safe haven for him, a time of peace and rest after his split from Vanitas and after the horrid training of Xehanort and whatever came before that. And even now the land is split and hurt he still feels the neutral energy of the place stabilising him, just like when he woke here before.

All of them will heal with it, he knows. But it will take time.

* * *

 

Terra does not like calling his Keyblade anymore. Always, always, he is afraid that instead of warm brown, harsh grey will fill his hands, a remnant of his waking nightmare that never ended. He does it out of sight of Aqua and Ven, so if it _does_ happen he can deal with it himself.

It never does. He does not stop fearing it will.

He summons his Keyblade and goes through the long katas that Master Eraqus taught them on hot summer afternoons when Terra’s thoughts would only be on the watermelon treat he knew was waiting back at the castle. He wishes that those memories and dreams would haunt him, but the only thing that does is his fading memory of Master Eraqus’s smile.

He practises and practises and tells himself he will not forget these like he has forgotten so many other things. Even when he feels the flicker of a shadow that is Vanitas on the edge of his senses he does not hesitate to execute the long lunge into a powerful overhand strike.

“You can practise too, if you’d like.”

“I can’t call my Keyblade.”

“That happens, sometimes.”

“What?”

Vanitas sounds shocked enough that Terra shifts out of his stance into something more neutral. When he looks at the boy, he has sulked closer, unhappy at the lesser distance but desirous of the information that Terra holds.

“When someone undergoes a great change, their Keyblade reflects that. You’ve undergone as great a change as I can think of.”

Vanitas does not seem happy with this answer. Terra attempts to explain further.

“You must have a strong view of yourself to summon a Keyblade. I bet you’re feeling shaky right now.”

He doesn’t need to look at Vanitas to feel his scorn.

“And you aren’t? Or Aqua or Ventus?”

“It’s a different type of shaky.”

Vanitas huffs and storms away. Terra takes up his stance again, ready to complete the next kata.

* * *

 

Ventus _touches_ him and it’s both the best and worst thing Vanitas has ever known.

He is so bright and full of light that it burns, but these are not the burns that he is familiar with, scalding and leaving a weeping wound behind. These burns are warm and encompassing and hold him suspended in light until he feels like he can’t breathe anymore. That’s when he shrugs out of Ventus’s grasp and flees the other boy, searching out his own corner of darkness to hide in and recover.

He doesn’t know how Ventus makes him feel like this. They should complement each other but sometimes Vanitas just feels like he is leeching off Ventus’s light one touch at a time. He does not know what he gives Ventus or why Ventus allows him this. He does not know why he is drawn back to the light after running away from it, seething at the corner of Ventu’s sight until the other boy welcomes him back. He just knows that he wants to stand next to him.

( _It feels good to be accepted._ )

* * *

 

Ven thinks that out of everyone, he is the one most put together.

Terra still walks like he’s in a waking dream sometimes, and has trouble remembering things even if Ven tells him several times. Aqua still reflexively summons her Keyblade when she hears any sound like seems like it might be a Heartless or Nobody. Vanitas is still so unsure what he wants and Ven knows he doesn’t know what he needs.

He supposes it makes sense. He doesn’t remember chunks of his past – his long years recovering and training with Terra, Aqua and Master Eraqus seem longer because they’re most of the memories that he has. He knows that Xehanort betrayed him in his role as his Master and hurt him, but most of the time he is only reminded of that when he feels a particularly strong pull towards Vanitas. Both of them are their own people now, but they still feel most comfortable around each other. Their light and darkness balance each other perfectly.

Terra still fights with himself on a near daily basis and Aqua still flinches and Vanitas doesn’t know what a calm and peaceful life looks like. Ven has his family back and the threat to them is gone, and he has his friends who he trusts and who he knows can handle themselves out there in the worlds, keeping track of things and taking care of any problems that arise. He visits the Destiny Islands and Twilight Town and deepens is bonds with Sora and Roxas and Lea, and finds new friends in Kairi and Xion.

Aqua and Terra do not leave the Land of Departure. Aqua tells him she cannot leave because a Master is supposed to be in residence at all times. She ruffles his hair and says that maybe when he attains his Mastery status she can go on field trips now and then. Ven bites his lip and does not ask about Terra.

Terra does not want the position of Master. Ven thinks that he has too many lurking fears and doubts inside him to consider such a big step when for so long he struggled against Master Xehanort. Ven does not begrudge him this at all, but he hopes for his friend’s recovery because it is what he deserves. None of them should have to live with the loitering presence of their pasts, and Terra least of all because for so long _he_ was the one who was skulking in the shadows of another.

Ven slowly reaches out into their spaces and finds what works for them. He gets Terra a notebook to write down his thoughts in so it doesn’t matter so much that he forgets, and even if he does, it’s not a huge deal. He lets Aqua boss him around and follows her directions and keeps his room clean because when she pokes her head in he knows that she appreciates the order. He drapes himself over Vanitas and tells him that he has a place here and that he doesn’t need to worry about anything and that he can let himself breathe and think about the person he wants to be.

It doesn’t matter if he’s the one dealing with everything the best. He’s happy about it, because that means he can help his friends find themselves, and stitch themselves back together into something that might look messy, but is whole.

* * *

 

Aqua stalks the corridors of her castle as and fixes the magic that had grown wild in the absence of their Master. Sometimes it is just corridors that are where they should not be. Sometimes they move when a person is in them, and the exit is somewhere unexpected.

Sometimes they are more dangerous.

Aqua does not mind this chore. She is used to danger and she thinks that if there was none she would have to go searching for it.

So she slowly works on the castle and makes it a home again, for all of them. Fixing broken things is something she knows how to do.

* * *

 

Vanitas knows what Ventus wants from him.

Ventus wants Vanitas to soften to Aqua and Terra. Ventus wants Vanitas to like living in the Land of Departure. Ventus wants him to consider this his home. Ventus wants to be _friends._

Vanitas doesn’t know what Ventus wants from him.

Vanitas doesn’t know how he expects Terra and Aqua to consider him friendly after everything he has done to them and how he has helped their enemies. Vanitas doesn’t know why Ventus thinks he will feel safe here when he does not know this place and the people here do not like him. Vanitas does not know how Ventus expects him to consider this a home when he thinks that the land itself is biased towards him. It is a place of neutrality. He is a being of darkness – was, was a being of darkness. Aqua says that his heart has grown back enough for him to be considered a person again. This is why he has to eat and drink and sleep and why he can no longer summon his unversed. Ventus claiming him in the Keyblade Graveyard did something to both of them. Now he has light within him and Ventus has darkness within him. Not a lot, but they are no longer halves of a lost whole. Vanitas is someone different now.

( _It scares him._ )

Vanitas doesn’t know how Ventus is supposed to be his friend after everything that happened between them. It is so easy to blame it all on Xehanort but that is not what happened. He had chances, so many chances to leave, and he didn’t –

( _He didn’t because he knew he could never leave. Why take punishment for something when you could simply not perform the act?_ )

He didn’t attempt to leave and that is damning enough. It should be. It _should_ be.

Ventus does not seem to care.

Ventus runs rings around him and shows off new moves he came up with and flashes his Keyblade around like it’s no big deal. He talks about Sora and Roxas and Xion and compares them to people he met on his travels, compares them to Aqua and Terra and Vanitas. He never stops talking, but listens if Vanitas ever says something, and seems to take Vanitas’s attempts at conversing in good faith even when he knows nothing. _Ventus wants to be his friend._

Vanitas sees no reason to avoid him. Where would he go? He can’t leave this world. He cannot summon his Keyblade. Even if he could, there is no place he could go or people he could return to. And he is fascinated by Ventus. Even if they are no longer two halves, he still feels a pull towards him. It would be pointlessly cruel to both of them to ignore it, because he sees it reflected in Ventus’s eyes just as much as he feels it stirring in the depths of his own new heart.

Vanitas is done being needlessly cruel.

* * *

 

“You don’t have to pretend to like me.”

“I don’t have to pretend anything. This is my castle.”

“I know. That’s why I don’t understand why you’re letting me live in it.”

“Ven wanted to bring you back. I didn’t understand at first, but you weren’t dangerous so there was no reason to say no.”

“I’m still dangerous!”

“Maybe to yourself.”

“…”

“Xehanort manipulated us all. That’s not your fault.”

“Don’t you dare pity me!”

“I don’t particularly feel much towards you. But I know you can be dangerous, which is why I’m keeping you here.”

“I can’t manipulate the shadows anymore, anyway. I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to.”

“I know.”

“…”

“Dinner’s in an hour.”

“Are you cooking that stupid stew again?”

“Yes. It’s Terra’s favourite.”

“Ugh.”

“I’ll see you down there.”

“Whatever.”

* * *

 

Vanitas does not know what to think of Aqua.

Before, she was a backup plan, a footnote that he didn’t particularly care to keep track of. There was no reason to after all, since he was sure that Ventus would be the one he would be facing. She was a means to an end.

He’s beginning to see that Aqua is much more than that.

She is the Master of this place and it reflects her. The stained glass windows take on a bluer tint and when he isn’t looking at them directly he swears he can see something of her reflected in the glass even though there should be nothing there. Xehanort ignored Aqua and he ignored Aqua but Aqua does not ignore him. He feels her eyes on him when they are in the same room and though they are heavy, they are not judging.

She does not lock him inside his room at night anymore.

Aqua is a powerful mage and her time seeped in darkness has given her a strength that Vanitas recognises. He does not know her. He thinks that he should change that, but he does not know where he could even begin to start. So he watches her instead, always half waiting for the blow to fall even though the only times Aqua has hit him was when he had challenged her to a fight before the first final battle.

* * *

 

Aqua still has trouble sleeping. She doesn’t know if she’s comforted or not that Terra does as well.

Sometimes they’ll meet in the dark of night, both wandering the castle halls silently. Then they will match their paces together and Terra will slow his long steps slightly for her, and she will extend hers slightly for him. He’s always been taller than her, and they’ve always walked like this together.

They rarely say anything, but his presence makes her feel better. It’s familiar and safe and with him by her side she knows he is safe. Sometimes she will deliver him to his door, and sometimes he will deliver her to hers. Sometimes Aqua will pull him inside and that is the only time she is guaranteed to sleep, with Terra’s back pressed against hers, his strong reassurance what she needs. Those nights are always the best ones, although she’s wary of making them a habit. She is wary on relying on anyone, but sometimes she is tired enough to admit defeat. And leaning on Terra rarely feels like a defeat at all.

* * *

 

Vanitas still has trouble sleeping. The silence means he has too much space to let his thoughts run wild in his head and laying down means he has nothing to do to distract him. He goes around his days with shadows under his eyes and snarls at anyone who suggests more sleep.

Ventus asks him if he wants to have a sleep over and if that will help him sleep and Vanitas can only eye him and ask what a sleep over is. That night Ventus fluffs up a pillow and hands it to him and falls flat on his face into the bed. Vanitas pokes at him but he is already asleep. Vanitas tries not to envy him that, and gingerly lays down, uncertain of what to expect.

Ventus’s light is dimmer in the night time shadows. It’s calmer and more approachable and Vanitas edges closer to it because he still feels most home when he is close to Ventus. Ventus does not wake and Vantias spends his first night actually sleeping peacefully. Ventus wakes him up in the morning and grins at him and sets Vanitas’s heart fluttering.

He doesn’t go back to his room.

* * *

 

Days gleam together and slowly Terra starts to think that this dream might not be a dream at all. They are visited by visitors, sometimes, and they start trouble that even Terra has to admit he could not dream up. Sora and Ven are as thick as thieves, and Roxas and Vanitas have a tentative thing between them that neither admits is friendship. Xion gets along with Vanitas the most out of everyone, and she gentles him in a way he never could have thought possible. Aqua is possessive of them and angry, always, although she hides it well. Terra thinks that he is the only one who sees it – maybe even beyond Aqua’s ability to recognise what she’s feeling.

Ven has grown up. Aqua is resistant to seeing it and Vanitas has grown alongside him and no one really knows how old anyone is any more but when summer comes Terra slowly organises a birthday party for him and Vanitas as well. Seventeen is the traditional age where Keyblade wielders were recognised as adults and given more freedom in their movements and higher education so they could study for the status of Master if they wanted to.

Terra writes everything down his notebook that he keeps securely in his pocket. He’s learned to deal with his faulty memory by scribbling down everything important as soon as he hears it. Aqua doesn’t mention it and Ven teases him very gently when he pulls it out to note down Ven’s favourite food or a new hiding place he found or a funny story Sora told him. He wants this birthday party to be reminiscent of their past without the whole thing being about their loss.

He carefully asks Aqua to bake the cake because he’s never been good with cooking sweet things and Aqua will like controlling the centre piece of the party. He writes out invitations and gives them to Ven to give to Sora and Roxas to deal out to their friends and makes Ven promise not to ask what’s in them or open them. He probably knows what it’s for but he seems content to let Terra deliberately weave together the party, tallying the amount of people who will likely come and putting together a lunch plan for all of them, thinking about where they’ll have the party and where they can put everyone if they stay the night.

The morning of, he asks Ven to help him set up the tables and prepare some of the hot food to go with the salads Terra made all of yesterday. Their friends start appearing as the sun reaches its peak, and Ven greets them all vibrantly, happiness shining through him. Vanitas lurks until Xion and Roxas get here, and then takes them off to do whatever they do when they are all together. Terra keeps himself apart, still feeling slightly too fragile to match Ven’s energy levels. He will check his list for the seventh time that morning to ensure he has covered all his points.

Sora and Riku help him bring out all the food, and place it on the tables. Lea and Isa are already sitting and Lea grabs a chicken wing before Riku can even put the dish on the table, using it to gesture wildly. Sora laughs, Riku rolls his eyes, and Terra carefully fades into the background. He’s become good at that. Riku still keeps an eye on him, but Riku is intimate with the darkness inside himself, just like Terra is. They’ve both been used and split open and impaled on their own weaknesses and they recognise it in each other.

He’s getting used to feeling like this. Slowly, slowly, but it’s beginning to work. He’s finding his balance and he’s finding his centre and he’s finding his place. He’s smoothing out the cracks Xehanort had riven into him and filling them with peaceful afternoons with Aqua’s words and Ven’s laugh and Vanitas’s presence.

The party is held in the castle courtyard.

* * *

 

Aqua burns with regret sometimes.

She wishes that she had seen more, sooner. She wishes she had _made_ Terra talk to her, make her understand what he was thinking. She wishes she had told him what Master Eraqus said to her. She goes back and argues with herself; she could have done this, she should have done that. She wants to buy back their peace and she is trying to build it within herself but sometimes it feels so far away.

Being with Terra and Ven helps. She is reminded that she has family, family that she cares for and who care for her. She even thinks that Vanitas is a good addition to their household – he surprises them in a good way, and helps break up their tense silences and new hurts when they accidentally tread on each other’s toes.

Sometimes the days drag at her and she can’t help but snap at her friends. She hides herself away and wonders why she’s not good enough and why she’s still so broken.

When she feels the worst, Terra always finds her and wraps his arms around her. It does make her feel better, even though that makes her feel guilty. She doesn’t deserve this. She doesn’t deserve a home or a family or –

Aqua closes her eyes and settles herself against Terra’s chest and let’s herself breathe. These thoughts are not everything she is.

* * *

 

Ven likes following Terra around on his walks. Terra walks like he’s going somewhere – fast, certain and even. Ven always knows which way he’ll go because Terra will look in one direction and he will go in one direction. That leaves Ven free to roam around, poke his head into bushes and jump up trees. He can feel Terra’s eyes on his back, but his gaze isn’t heavy. It’s grounding – Terra follows Ven with his eyes because he worries, and Ven likes being watched because even now he dislikes being alone and he dislikes being unseen.

Ven will chatter away and Terra will sometimes write things down in his notebook. Ven tells him about his adventures after he left the Land of Departure, he tells him about the dreams he has of his past, he tells him about the weight on his limbs and how he’s sometimes scared that sleep will crawl up his throat and drag him down. Terra tells him about his own confusion between sleep and waking and how he feels so disappointed that his memory isn’t as good as it used to be. Ven will kick his legs from where he’s sitting on a tree branch and launch himself at Terra to give him a hug. Terra will hug him back fiercely, and Ven will feel young and safe again.

So yes. Ven likes following Terra around on his walks.

* * *

 

Aqua tries to treat Ven the same but sometimes she just can’t.

She tells him to do something and he does it but not quickly enough. Or doesn’t do it the exact way she wanted despite not specifying how she wanted it. She will snap at him and it’s not fair and she knows that but she’s been thinking about taking care of Ven for so long that she feels like she needs to continue doing so now. In the Realm of Darkness she knew that she had to go on because she was the only one who could go back and wake Ven up. That kept her going. That kept her strong.

Coming back and adjusting to Ven being his own person and not someone she has placed on a pedestal is… jarring. She does not know how to act around him even though she did so easily for years. Neither of them look much different but so much has changed that it makes her head spin.

It is hard to quiet her temper and her impulse to control but she does it because she knows it is not fair on Ven to make him try and keep up with her unreasonably high standards. This is just another thing that the Realm of Darkness has done to her, and it is just another thing that she will eventually get under control. She is aware of this problem and she will not let it control her – she will never let anything control her, ever again. She has so many mistakes to make up for, and she will not add new ones to the pile.

* * *

 

Terra knows how to control his darkness, now.

That does not mean that it is gone, because it is not. But he is far more aware of it than he ever was, and the mere fact that he acknowledges it means that he in a much better position to deal with it. An unknown can strike you much harder than a known can, because you were never expecting an unknown in the first place. Terra does not want to hurt any of his friends ever again, knowingly or unknowingly.

Riku helps him confront and control it, and Terra wonders if this is what he saw in him, all those years ago. Riku’s light and darkness are in a careful balance that Terra admires. This strength is what he wants for himself, and he’s only a little embarrassed to have to ask Riku about it. The younger man is forthright and honest about what he’s been through and that lets Terra admit things that he hasn’t talked about to anyone else. Riku listens to him solemnly and gives him tips and Terra promises to try. Sometimes he feels like that’s all he does anymore – promise this, promise that. But Riku nods at him and tells him that he believes in him and Terra lets himself believe that he can do this.

* * *

 

Vanitas curls around Ventus’s light, now.

He knows that he wants it and wants to be close by it and he feels a satisfying twist of validation when Ventus drapes an arm over his shoulders or presses his head against his neck or kicks his legs into Vanitas’s lap while they’re reading or napping.

He has gotten used to the way it feels, and no longer thinks that it burns. It burns as much as the cookfire in the kitchen burns him, which is not at all as long as he doesn’t deliberately poke it. But it does help him, softening some parts of him and scalding away rotting and broken pieces he doesn’t want anyway. Ventus shows him that it’s okay to touch without violence, alright to exist without being used by someone else.

Vanitas knows he will do anything to protect that light, now.

* * *

 

“I know you hate me.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Yes you do.”

“I hate what you did, maybe.”

“See? I told you. You hate me.”

“No. I could never agree with your actions. But you were never the one to decide what you did, did you?”

“…”

“You’re safe here, you know.”

“Don’t say things like that to me.”

“You don’t have to be scared anymore.”

“You don’t know me!”

“I’d like to.”

“…”

“If you want, you can help me harvest the berries on the hill tomorrow. We always used to make jam with them, and I’d like to do that again.”

“…Okay.”

* * *

 

Ven races up the mountain. He can feel Vanitas hot on his heels, but there’s only thrill in the challenge. They left fear behind them a long time ago.

He’s as quick as the wind and just as prone to turning and eddying, but Vanitas can’t fight their shared nature and he darts and swirls just as much as Ven does. They reach the summit at the same time, like always. Vanitas huffs, put out about it, but Ven only smiles and goes to sit on the cliff edge, overlooking the castle and the grounds. They’re much more put together nowadays, even if they are a bit different from what he remembers from his childhood.

Vanitas sits beside him and Ven lifts his head to the stars, a smile curling his lips.

* * *

 

The Land of Departure is peaceful.

Aqua has taken her duties as its Master seriously. She has organised for the land that was destroyed to be repaired, and she has taken it on herself to wrangle with the magical problems inside the castle that remain from where they were all twisted up and broken when the castle transformed into that mishmash of white and green and strange floors and cards. There are still pockets of disquiet, but she remembers Master Eraqus telling her and Terra as apprentices to stay away from certain corners of the castle even when they were small, so she thinks that there have always been places of strangeness within. She supposes it makes sense. This is a place of neutrality, and even here there must be balance, between light and dark, and order and chaos. She is content to let the chaos have its corners, even if those corners must be clearly defined and known by her.

Some of the rooms have changed, too. The library is now split into two different rooms. The welcoming chamber is significantly larger than she remembers it being. The kitchen has grown another two benches and another oven. She likes the changes. They help her recognise that this is not the place of her youth, but the place of her _now_. It’s another reminder.

She finds that she needs reminders. Things are getting better, but that does not mean things are okay. Even though she longs to go back to being as she was before, she recognises that the person she had been was swallowed by the dark. There are some things that she cannot bring back even if she wants to, and she has to make her peace with that. It is not a journey she can make overnight, but over time she fights with her instincts and makes them lie flat against her skin, like knives she’s ready to throw. They are hers to control, and she makes sure that she is in control of them. She is a Master – she is capable of this. She tells herself this day after day, night after night, and as she slowly begins to prove herself right, her confidence grows. She feels herself smile more. She lets herself laugh more.

The Land of Departure is peaceful, and she doesn’t know what to do with that. It was her state of being for so long, but then it was upset in such a drastic way that she changed because of it, and even if she finds herself longing for that person she once was, she would not discard her growth and all that she has gained because of it. So she plants new berry bushes on the hills behind the castle and dusts of the cookbooks in the kitchen and turns to her metalworking again, crafting new earrings for herself and Vanitas and rings for Ventus and bookmarks and strange, fancy things that have no real purpose for Terra.

The work and the quiet lets herself order her mind and her thoughts into something she can live with. Aqua enjoys it, and enjoys enjoying it, and lets her happiness sink through to the core of who she is.

* * *

 

Vanitas remembers how to summon his Keyblade almost a year after he lost it.

The previous day, Ventus had grabbed his hand and smiled at him and Vanitas had thought _maybe everything will be okay._ This is the moment he is calm enough to try again, but he doesn’t rush things.

When he calls it, it is different to before. The jagged edges of Void Gear are gone, replaced with something else. It is long and dark and has a single wing near the guard. The teeth are made up of an empty heart. Only a fraction of the heart is filled. The Keyblade is called _Forgotten Past_ and Vanitas adores it.

Ventus is ecstatic for him, jumping around far more than usual. Terra puts a hand on his shoulder and even Aqua gives him a nod of acknowledgement. Ventus challenges him to a spar and Vanitas is happy to agree, until he realises that his year of rest has left him without the keen edge he used to have.

But maybe that’s alright. That edge was honed on the fear of death, stalking him at every moment. Maybe he needed to wait this long in order to forget, just a little, what that felt like.

* * *

 

Aqua trains both him and Vanitas now that they have their Keyblades back. It’s strange treating her as his Master, but Ven has had enough time and space to process Eraqus’s death that it is not unacceptable. Vanitas has his teeth bared but it’s in a grin, not a snarl, and Aqua accepts it with a raised eyebrow.

Aqua guides him through more traditional forms than his self-taught frenzy of a fighting style that he had to come up with while he was fighting bigger and bigger monsters on his journey. Aqua gentles his form into something usable but strong – tames his wildness into power and speed. He’s so glad she’s settling into her role as the Master of the castle. Her duties should include teaching younger Keyblade wielders, and he’s happy to oblige her that. Plus, he likes spending time with her. Training lets them fall back into something familiar, a set pattern that they can rely on because that, at least, hasn’t changed.

When their session is over, he hi fives Vanitas (who only hesitates for a second before raising his hand for Ven to slap), and holds his palm up again for another one. Aqua raises an eyebrow at him but he doesn’t relent, grinning at her widely.

Aqua huffs and gives him a hi five, and Ven lets a laugh bubble up from his throat.

* * *

 

Terra keeps his Wayfinder around his neck. It swings by his heart and the metal warms with the skin contact. It’s another thing to keep him grounded when he feels like he’s about to fall through himself. He can’t be with people all the time, and he doesn’t want to be with people all the time. Even before Xehanort stole his body, he needed his space, away from Ven’s chatter and Aqua’s light.

The Wayfinder is always there if something happens and suddenly he needs grounding. He can grip it through his shirt and the rounded edges dig into his palm and he knows that he is not dreaming and he is not being shoved back down into the back of his own mind. He is here and he is by himself and he is _himself_ and no one else at all.

He spends his time alone on at the top of the castle, overlooking the courtyard. From here he can see anyone arriving, and watch with a smile as Ven and Vanitas chase each other across the slopes of the mountain. There is always a breeze and he can let his hair ruffle around his face and _think_. Sometimes he feels like there is only so many thoughts he can fit in his head and sometimes he feels like his thoughts only slip through his fingers like sand. He can pull himself together up here. He can be himself up here.

“Terra?”

He turns to find Aqua by the stairwell. She doesn’t step out onto the roof. None of the others disturb him up here, and usually allow him this space.

“Yes?”

“Do you remember the recipe the Master used to use for his walnut bread? You always paid more attention to his savoury dishes…”

He knows the one that she’s talking about. So he nods and her eyes crinkle into a smile and she holds out her hand for him to take. He can almost feel the Wayfinder under his shirt, pulsing ever so slightly with the beat of her heart. Her magic is always with him, gentle support when he needs it most.

He takes her hand.

* * *

 

Ven knows he is the loudest out of all four of them, but while Vanitas will tell him to shut up or Aqua will leave if she doesn’t want to listen to him anymore, Terra will always sit and smile and be willing to let himself talk himself out. When they all go for picnics up on the mountain or down to the cliff overlooking the sea, Aqua and Vanitas like to explore and Ven does as well, but they like to sneak up on the wildlife and he isn’t patient or quiet enough for that. So he will eat his fill on the picnic and maybe nap a little in the sun and Vanitas and Aqua will go for a walk and Terra will sit with Ven. When Ven wakes up they’ll go on a walk together, and Terra will pick the path and Ven will chatter alongside him.

Terra asks his own questions now, and will tell his own stories. Ven will clamour for stories about growing up, about the first time Aqua cast a blizzard spell and froze Master Eraqus’s hair and about how Terra first came to this world. Terra will oblige and while his words might falter sometimes, he always picks back up on the thread of what he was saying. It feels so much like what Ven remembers while being different that he can’t help but grin as he listens.

Terra ruffles his hair and Ven makes a complaint more because he feels obligated to as a younger brother than because he really minds, and basks in Terra’s chuckle.

* * *

 

Aqua dusts flour off her cookbook and examines the fine text critically. The precise instructions allow her the rigid control she tries to keep out of her interactions with the others. It’s something she’s able to recognise and control, even though it itches at the back of her mind.

Vanitas hands her the scale and she measures flour into a container and weighs it until it is perfect. She gives it over to Vanitas, who starts sifting it vigorously. She lets him do the active parts of the cooking – beating the eggs or the cream, sifting the flour. He likes the set steps. Both of them have agreed that Ven and Terra have no place in the kitchen – Terra tends to dump ingredients into bowls without regard for measurements, and Ven tries to skip steps or do them out of order. Neither of them can stand that.

Cooking is certain. Cooking has steps and procedures and both of them know their role in the kitchen. This is doable. This is easy. This is… comfortable.

This is never something that she could have predicted a year ago. She had accepted Vanitas into their household because he posed no threat and Ven wanted him around and she had felt that he deserved a second chance. They all had to play with the cards they had been dealt, but Xehanort had stacked the deck against all of them, but against Vanitas especially. He had been pulled from Ven and sculpted into the exact being that Xehanort had required to fulfil his plan and had never been given a choice. So Aqua lets him into her kitchen and live in her home and feels only compassion towards one who had been her enemy.

“You gonna tell me what this is yet?”

Aqua smirks at him and Vanitas scowls at her and then they both burst into laughter.

“You’re going to like it.”

Vanitas huffs out a sigh, but he doesn’t ask again. Aqua’s heart warms. He trusts her, too.

* * *

 

Terra curls around his darkness. It’s there, always, but it always has been. He just knows about it now.

He supposes that’s another facet of the changes within him. He doesn’t think his darkness is any deeper from before Xehanort, but it might be a slightly different colour. He is more certain of himself now. He is not afraid to look or acknowledge the darkness inside him. He is certain that if anything threatened Ven or Aqua or Vanitas he would call on it, as an asset he has to improve his chances of removing a threat. The Land of Departure is quiet, and he has had no need to test his darkness in real combat, but he is aware of it as a possibility.

Vanitas appears out of the shadows of the tree line and comes and sits on the wall by the courtyard. He watches Terra perform his kata for a few minutes before speaking.

“You know, you’re allowed to avoid this place if you want.”

Terra feels a flicker inside him but he quiets it with a well-practiced slash of his Keyblade.

“I don’t need to avoid anything.”

“I know what happened in this courtyard.”

Terra stills and looks at him.

“Ventus told me.”

“There’s no reason to avoid it.”

Vanitas kicks at the air, his heels thudding back against the wall irregularly.

“I can tell it upsets you.”

“How?”

“I can still sense darkness. I was a being made completely _of_ darkness. That position comes with some perks.”

Vanitas’s voice is light but Terra knows him well enough to hear the underlying current of disquiet.

“Some days it’s just – worse.”

It feels bad to admit it, but it’s true. He never gained anything by lying, to himself or others. And if anyone knows what he means, it will be Vanitas.

“That doesn’t mean you have to poke at it. There’s no reason to make it worse than it already is.”

Vanitas meets his gaze when Terra looks at him. His eyes are no longer gold but ruby red, and Terra can’t sense any judgement from him.

“I suppose you’re right.”

He straightens from his kata and Vanitas hops off the wall.

“Glad to know that you’re finally getting with the program. Want to spar instead? We can go up the mountain. First one there gets a free hit!”

“Hey!”

But Vanitas has already taken off – Terra will be hard pressed to match his speed. Still, he runs anyway. There’s no way he’s letting him a free hit without having to work for it. 

* * *

 

There are times when Vanitas sprawls alongside Ventus in their shared bed that he wants more than what they have.

It frustrates him. After having nothing, this want seems so greedy – he is not happy with what he has now? A family, and friends, and a safe home with people who will protect him? He presses his face to the back of Ventus’s neck and breathes and is thankful that he can no longer feel his emotions. At least he knows that everything that is twisted up inside him is his and his alone. He doesn’t need what Ventus is feeling as well to confuse everything even more.

Ventus is his other half except not really anymore. They have been split apart and come back together and they are no longer evenly separated. Vanitas could leave this place if he wanted, and so could Ventus, without the other. Perhaps that is what drags at him. He does not want to leave Ventus’s side – he would be lost without his chatter and brightness like a shining star.

Ventus moves in his sleep and Vanitas slings an arm over him.

“You ‘wake?”

Ventus’s voice is slurred. He always wakes up slowly, and it is rare that he wakes at all during the night.

“Just thinking.”

“Well stop. Night time is for sleeping, not thinking.”

But maybe he can tell that there’s something off, because he wriggles around in his arms and looks at him. Vanitas resists the urge to pull him under his chin.

“You look so worried. There’s nothing to be worried about, you know.”

“I know.”

“Then what is it?”

“I was just thinking that there’s nothing keeping us here. We could go, if we wanted.”

“Well I want to keep training until I’m a Master, but you can go if you want to leave.”

Vanitas feels his heart clenching in his chest.

“But I don’t _want_ to go anywhere without you.”

Ventus blinks at him sleepily and Vanitas can only feel a rush of affection towards him.

“If you don’t want to go, then you don’t have to.”

“But _you_ can go.”

Ventus looks at him and then wriggles closer, sliding an arm over him.

“Without you? That’d be pretty boring.”

When Ventus kisses him he doesn’t know how to react – he stills under the new sensation. Ventus goes to pull away but Vantias chases after him, pulling him in close and sliding a hand up into his hair. Ventus sighs quietly and nuzzles into his chest and goes back to sleep and Vanitas holds him close and warm.

“Okay Ven.”

He murmurs the words quietly like a promise between them, and even though Ven doesn’t hear him, he still shines with the light that Vanitas loves about him.

* * *

 

Ven knows that they are all different people to who they were before.

Aqua is more jaded. Terra is quieter. Vanitas can smile. Ven is… well, Ven doesn’t always just see the good in people anymore. He’s no longer willing to look over flaws or ignore them. He tells his friends if he thinks they’re not behaving to the standard he knows they can, and he offers help when he needs to.

They are all different, but that doesn’t mean the change is for the worse.

Ven can still lift his face to the wind and enjoy the sunshine and Aqua can still amaze them all with magic tricks and Terra still tells dumb jokes and Vanitas’s determination gets him into and out of more trouble than Ven can count.

He wouldn’t change what they have now. He loves all of them so much that sometimes it feels like his heart is about to explode from happiness and just from being around them. There is forgiveness in Aqua’s lessons and peace in Terra’s silences and joy in Vanitas’s kisses. Ven watches them all find themselves and is immensely satisfied by what he sees.

* * *

 

Aqua sleeps better now than before, but she still has her off nights.

Then, she paces around the castle corridors, steps completely quiet as she checks on Terra in his room and Ven and Vanitas in their room. The Land of Departure is always quiet, but there is a difference in the quiet of night and day. At day, the birds sing and she can usually hear the muted sounds of one of the other people talking or moving around. At night, there is only the quiet buzz of the night time insects to keep her company, and the moon as she hangs in the sky. Aqua perches on one of the balcony edges and stares up at the stars until she yawns and heads back to her own bed.

She still has her off nights, but even they are mitigated by her need to sleep. She no longer has sleepless nights, wandering the castle for hours on end with no goal and no real thoughts in her mind besides the walking. She was always, always walking in the Realm of Darkness. There, she could never afford to stop besides on the beach at the very end, where no Heartless gathered and where she could almost let herself believe that she was safe. That illusion was shattered along with everything else when she fell to darkness, but she still remembers the walking. There is no end to the Realm of Darkness and there was no end to her journey but now she has no reason to walk aimlessly. She can check on her loved ones and head back to her own room to sleep, secure in the knowledge that they are safe.

She is no longer a phantom haunting her own castle.

* * *

 

These days, he can tell his dreams apart easily from his waking hours. His dreams are hazy and indistinct. (His panic attacks are too sharp – but those come rarely.) Normal life is just that – normal. He breathes. He follows the routine of the day: breakfast, lunch, dinner. Mediation and kata in the morning. Reading and history and training Ven and Vanitas in the afternoon. Curling up with his family and eating the newest sweet thing Aqua and Vanitas have created. A fire in the hearth in the winter, sweating it out and complaining with everyone in the summer.

He doesn’t think he will ever be put together. What he went through changed him, and he is still feeling out the edges of those changes even now.

But he has Aqua to sleep against during the night and Ven to walk with during the day and Vanitas to talk him out of the shadows when he retreats to where Aqua and Ven can’t follow. But they all give him space when he needs it and pull him out of his shell even when he doesn’t think he needs it.

He’s still growing into his new shape. It’s a process – but he’s beginning to like the person that is being revealed as he clears away tangles of darkness over his heart.

* * *

 

Sometimes, he almost forgets about Master Xehanort.

There are times when he is so lost in Aqua’s recipes or so caught up in his spar against Terra that he – forgets. It slips his mind, until it doesn’t. He doesn’t know if he likes forgetting, because remembering makes him lose his step or stalls his breath for a second. And he always remembers.

Ven says that it’s a sign that he’s moving on. Vanitas has no idea what that means – how can he move on from what he did, from what he was? Ven says that these things take time and that he has time to work things out. Vanitas looks for who he wants to be under rocks in new worlds and in sunsets on beaches. What is he supposed to be if he is not shaped by Xehanort, or anyone else? Who is he supposed to be when the only one deciding is _him?_

He does not know, and he thinks that he will not know for some time. But he has decided that that’s okay. It is okay for him to be uncertain, and to be unsure and to reach for answers that he doesn’t know if he’s ready for. Aqua tells him that is a part of growing up – Terra tells him that he is just growing into himself.

He supposes that in the end, it’s all the same thing.

He doesn't know the answers to the questions that he asks himself, but he has finally, finally come to realise that he does not need all the answers, and that he can be a whole of himself now even when striving for the more of tomorrow.

Vanitas likes that. 

**Author's Note:**

> broke: mourning the end of kh3  
> woke: writing 10k in under 24 hours to fix the end of kh3
> 
> Vani's new keyblade can be seen [here](http://oathkeeperoxas.tumblr.com/post/183014345370/valvocea-so-ive-been-thinking-about-the-broken)


End file.
